The following is a transcription of Quaker Joseph Hoag’s 1803 revelation concerning a then-future Civil War in the USA. It should be compared and contrasted with that of D&C 87. This is taken from Stephen Post papers, 1835-1921, MS 1304, Church History Library:
A VISION OF JOSEPH HOAG. WHO WAS AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE SOCIETY OF
FRIENDS, OF NEW YORK
In the year 1803, in the eighth or ninth month, I was one day alone in
the field, and observed the sun shone clear, but a mist eclipsed its
brightness. As I reflected on the singularity of the event, my mind was struck into
a silence the most solemn I ever remember to have witnessed, for all my
faculties were low, and unusually brought into deep silence. I said to myself,
what can all this mean? I do not recollect ever before to have been sensible of
such feelings, and I heard a voice from heaven say, “This which thou seest, which
dims the brightness of the sun, is a sign of present and coming times. I took
the forefathers of this country from a land of oppression; I planted them among
the people of the forest; I sustained them, and while they were humble I
blessed them and fed them, and they became a numerous people. But now they have
became proud and lifted up, and have forgotten Me who nourished and protected
them in the wilderness and are running into every abomination and evil practice
of which the countries are guilty, and have taken quietude from the land, and
suffered a dividing spirit to come among them. Life up thine eyes and behold!”
And I saw them dividing in great heat. This division began in the
church on points of doctrine. It commenced in the Presbyterian society and went
through the various religious denominations, and in its progress and close its
effects were the same. Those that dissented went off with high heads and
taunting language, and those that kept to their original sentiments appeared exercised
and sorrowful. And when the dividing spirit entered the society of friends, it raged
in as high a degree as in any I had before discovered. As before those who kept
to their ancient principles retired by themselves. It appeared in lodges of
Freemasons; it broke out in appearance like a volcano, inasmuch as it set the
country in an uproar for a length of time. Then it entered politics in the
United States, and did not stop until it produced a civil war, and an abundance
of human blood was shed in the combat. The Southern States lost their power,
and slavery was annihilated from their borders. Then a monarchical power arose
and took the government of the States, and established a national religion, and
made all the people tributary to support its expenses. I saw them take property
from friends to a large amount. I was amazed at all this, and heard a voice
proclaiming, “This power shall not always stand, but with it I shall chastise
my church, until they return to the faithfulness of their forefathers, Tho
seest what is coming on thy native land for its iniquities and blood of Africa,
the remembrance, of which has come up before me. This vision is yet for many
days.”
I had no idea of writing it for many years, until it became such
burden that for my own relief I have written it.
JOSEPH HOAG.
While Hoag did
accurately predict a Civil War in the USA based, in part, on the question of
slavery, Hoag was in error concerning the future of the Southern States and an
establishment of a “monarchical power” that “established a national religion.”
Further
Reading:
Resources
on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies
JosephSmith vs. Charles T. Russell on the Survival of the USA After World War 1
